How Helch works
with Google
The Helch inbox brings the market's email accounts, messages and contacts into one place for the people who run it.
To do that, Helch connects to a Google account with the account holder's explicit permission. Here's exactly what we access and why.
What Google data Helch accesses and why
Gmail Helch accesses the connected Gmail mailbox using the https://mail.google.com/ scope, which is what Google's IMAP and SMTP sign-in (XOAUTH2) requires. It reads messages so they appear in the unified inbox alongside the market's other mailboxes, powering search across every account, unread and flagged views, AI-drafted replies and the owner's daily digest of what needs attention. When someone chooses to reply from Helch, the same permission is used to send that message on the account's behalf.
Google Contacts and Calendar Helch does not request access to Google Contacts or Google Calendar. The people view in the inbox is built from the messages themselves and from the contacts you add to Helch.
Helch only requests the scope that mailbox access needs. We do not ask for anything beyond mail.
Helch does not use your Google data to serve you advertisements, including personalised, retargeted, or interest-based advertising. Your data is never sold or shared with third parties for their own purposes. AI models process your data only within your account to power the features described above.
Your data is never used to train external models.
Google API Services User Data Policy compliance
Helch's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically:
- Helch only uses your Google data to provide and improve the user-facing features described on this page.
- Helch only transfers your Google data to third parties when necessary to provide or improve these features, with your consent, or for security and legal compliance purposes. The one such transfer is message text sent to our AI provider to draft a reply or answer a search, under terms that do not permit training on it.
- Helch does not allow humans to read your Google data unless you have given explicit consent (for example, when contacting support about a specific message), it is necessary for security purposes such as investigating abuse, or it is required by law. The people who run the market read the market's own mailboxes, which is what the inbox is for.
- Helch does not use your Google data to serve advertisements.
Helch stores copies of the connected mailbox's messages for only as long as needed to deliver the features above. You can disconnect a Google account from Helch at any time from Admin → Inbox → Accounts. When you do, Helch stops accessing it and removes the stored copies of that account's messages from our systems. You can also revoke Helch's access at any time through your Google Account permissions at myaccount.google.com/permissions, and ask for any data we hold to be deleted via our data deletion page.